Algeria on Wednesday begun production of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by China-based Sinovac as part of an agreement between the Algerian and Chinese governments in a bid to speed up the vaccination process reported TRT World.
As part of the deal, Algerian state pharmaceutical company Saidal will manufacture CoronaVac under license from China’s Sinovac Laboratories. The production started at a factory in the eastern city of Constantine.
Algerian Prime Minister Aimene Benabderrahmane, who attended the launch event, called it a big achievement.
“Algeria aims to achieve other projects of this kind,” Benabderrahmane said, praising the country’s pharmaceutical industry.
The prime minister said once the objective of covering the national market is achieved, Algeria will begin exporting the vaccine to neighboring countries.
According to Algerian pharmaceutical company, Saidal, the Constantine plant will produce 1 million doses in October and double the number in November, with output set to rise to 5.3 million doses in January 2022.
Saidal executive Wisam Kisumia said the factory will turn out 320,000 doses a day at full capacity, equating to 8 million doses monthly.
Lotfi Djamel Benbahmed, Algerian minister for the pharmaceutical industry, has said the country plans to export the vaccines.
The North African country has been importing vaccines, mainly Sinovac, since the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020. The government plans to begin production of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine by the end of this year.
Algeria has reported a total of 203,000 infections and 5,797 deaths, since the first coronavirus case was detected in February 2020.
According to government data, more than 14 million of Algeria’s nearly 45 million people have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, while 5.8 million are fully vaccinated. The government aims to vaccinate 70% of Algeria’s 45 million people by the end of 2021.
The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases from 55 African countries reached 8,274,917 as of September 30.
